1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an apparatus and a method for controlling an automatic gain of an inertial sensor.
2. Description of the Related Art
An inertial sensor has been used in various applications, for example, military, such as an artificial satellite, a missile, an unmanned aircraft, and the like, an air bag, electronic stability control (ESC), a black box for a vehicle, a hand shaking prevention camcorder, a mobile phone, motion sensing of a game machine, navigation, and the like.
The inertial sensor is classified into an acceleration sensor that may measure a linear motion and an angular velocity sensor that may measure a rotation motion.
Acceleration may be calculated by Newton's law of motion “F=ma”, where “m” represents a mass of a moving body and “a” is acceleration to be measured. Further, angular velocity may be calculated by a Coriolis force “F=2 mΩ×v”, where “m” represents the mass of the moving body, “Ω” represents the angular velocity to be measured, and “v” represents the motion velocity of the mass. In addition, a direction of the Coriolis force is determined by an axis of velocity v and a rotating axis of angular velocity Ω.
The inertial sensor performs an automatic gain control to continuously maintain a constant performance, regardless of the change in time or surrounding environment so as to accurately sense a targeted signal.
In this case, the most important characteristic of an automatic gain control apparatus of an inertial sensor is IC power consumption, in particular, when the inertial sensor is designed to be mounted in a mobile device, the automatic gain control apparatus requires design methods for operating IC at low power consumption if possible, while performing various functions required by a host.